London-listed airlines and tour stocks fell sharply this morning as Britain imposed a two-week coronavirus quarantine on travellers returning from Spain and said it was watching cases in Germany and France closely.
The move deals another blow to an industry already reeling from a downturn.
Britain said over the weekend that it was taking Spain, where Britons made up over a fifth of foreign visitors last year, off a safe-travel list.
The UK government is also watching coronavirus cases in Germany and France closely and continuously reviewing the situation in popular holiday destinations.
Shares of tour operator TUI, Aer Lingus and British Airways-owner IAG, airlines Easyjet, Wizz Air and Ryanair and holiday package provider On The Beach were down between 4% and 13%.
The quarantine measure upset the plans of many people either on holiday or planning to take one and caused more disruption for airlines and tour companies.
The FTSE 350 travel and leisure index, which was tracking its worst year in a decade with a 40% fall, was down 2.3% to its lowest in nearly a month.
IAG fell to the bottom of London's bluechip index, while TUI was the worst performer on the mid-caps and On The Beach underperformed the small caps.
The Spanish government will focus its efforts on trying to persuade Britain to exclude popular travel destinations Balearic and Canary islands from the quarantine measure, the foreign ministry had said.
TUI, Europe's biggest holiday company, said on Sunday it had decided to cancel all holidays to mainland Spain up to and including Sunday August 9, while Ryanair said it had no plans to cut UK-Spain capacity.
Ryanair today reported an after-tax loss of €185m for the three months to June 30, its first-ever loss in the quarter, but less than the €232m forecast in a company poll of analysts.
It also cut its annual passenger target by a quarter.
